As your ferry approaches Heimaey Harbour, you sail around Ystiklettur, one of the island’s Northern Cliffs formed about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. This promontory stands 686 feet over the oval-shaped Klettsvík Bay. This cove is where Keiko, the male orca who stared in the 1993 movie “Free Willy,” lived from 1998 until freed in 2002. In 2019, the bay became the world’s first open sea beluga whale sanctuary. The first two residents were Little Grey and Little White. The beluga whales were captured in Russian waters and performed at a zoo in Shanghai before being shipped over 6,200 miles from China to Iceland.
